Matsila — A community farming project aimed at developing agricultural productivity and to ensure that fewer people in South Africa are food insecure has been unveiled in Limpopo.

The Matsila Community Project, which is situated in Matsila village under the Makhado Municipality, was officially launched by Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson on Sunday.

“The interesting part of this project is that it will not only provide jobs for the local people but it will also provide food to residents. We want government to be the main source of procurement of this project.

“As government, we are very proud to be associated and be part of this successful and well-run project, and we are hopeful that it will go a long way in addressing poverty and hunger in our communities.

“We will sign agreements with other government departments so that they can support the project by buying products as another way of sustaining the project,” said the minister.

She urged residents to make their project grow from strength to strength. “We also urge you to develop vegetable gardens in your backyards, schools and clinics in order to fight hunger.”

Joemat-Pettersson further committed to help the project with tractors.

The launch was part of the build-up to the main celebration of Nelson Mandela Day in Giyani stadium on Monday. Joemat-Pettersson got her hands dirty for 67 minutes collecting, grading, sorting, cleaning and packing eggs.

She was also joined by Limpopo MEC for Sports, Arts and Culture, Joyce Mashamba, MEC for Agriculture, Pinky Duba, and executive mayor of Vhembe, Florence Rumani and Makhado mayor, Mavhungu Luruli.

The packaged eggs were donated to orphans, children with disabilities and the poorest of the poor in the community.

“This is the project which the community must jealously guard against any form of criminality and other ways of derailing it … This project is thriving, it is visible and you can feel it.

“As the provincial leadership, we will be closely evaluation and monitoring this project because we don’t want it to become a white elephant,” said Mashamba.

Her sentiments were echoed by Duba: “We are going to establish a market for this project at an international level and we want to roll-out similar project across the province. We are really proud of what it is happening in this village. This project is also playing a central role in uniting villagers.”

Luruli had this to say about the project: “We’ve since established a committee to work with villagers, but we want to give credit to the visionary traditional leadership of this area for uniting residents to establish this project.”

Through the Matsila Community Development Trust, the project received a whopping R54 million to fight food insecurity over the next three years.

Matsila — A community farming project aimed at developing agricultural productivity and to ensure that fewer people in South Africa are food insecure has been unveiled in Limpopo.

The Matsila Community Project, which is situated in Matsila village under the Makhado Municipality, was officially launched by Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson on Sunday.

“The interesting part of this project is that it will not only provide jobs for the local people but it will also provide food to residents. We want government to be the main source of procurement of this project.

“As government, we are very proud to be associated and be part of this successful and well-run project, and we are hopeful that it will go a long way in addressing poverty and hunger in our communities.

“We will sign agreements with other government departments so that they can support the project by buying products as another way of sustaining the project,” said the minister.

She urged residents to make their project grow from strength to strength. “We also urge you to develop vegetable gardens in your backyards, schools and clinics in order to fight hunger.”

Joemat-Pettersson further committed to help the project with tractors.

The launch was part of the build-up to the main celebration of Nelson Mandela Day in Giyani stadium on Monday. Joemat-Pettersson got her hands dirty for 67 minutes collecting, grading, sorting, cleaning and packing eggs.

She was also joined by Limpopo MEC for Sports, Arts and Culture, Joyce Mashamba, MEC for Agriculture, Pinky Duba, and executive mayor of Vhembe, Florence Rumani and Makhado mayor, Mavhungu Luruli.

The packaged eggs were donated to orphans, children with disabilities and the poorest of the poor in the community.

“This is the project which the community must jealously guard against any form of criminality and other ways of derailing it … This project is thriving, it is visible and you can feel it.

“As the provincial leadership, we will be closely evaluation and monitoring this project because we don’t want it to become a white elephant,” said Mashamba.

Her sentiments were echoed by Duba: “We are going to establish a market for this project at an international level and we want to roll-out similar project across the province. We are really proud of what it is happening in this village. This project is also playing a central role in uniting villagers.”

Luruli had this to say about the project: “We’ve since established a committee to work with villagers, but we want to give credit to the visionary traditional leadership of this area for uniting residents to establish this project.”

Through the Matsila Community Development Trust, the project received a whopping R54 million to fight food insecurity over the next three years.

Everyone knows we eat pretty well and are fortunate for the fact that we can, but that doesn’t mean we forget there’s hunger in the world. To that end, we’re excited to team up with World Food Programme in their social media initiative, WeFeedback, the world’s largest community for sharing food and changing lives in the fight against hunger.

We had such a great experience with the Holiday Spotathon that we’re excited to get the help of our community in another initiative to give back. According to WeFeedback, the cost of your typical burger can feed 40 kids, so our goal is to feed 10,000 by working together. Starting today, uploading a sighting might mean that you’ll see a little prompt inviting you to join us in reaching our goal. Take a look and if you’re so inclined, donate a few dollars to help us get there.

Visit our WeFeedback donation page directly, in case you were interested in giving but haven’t gone out to eat in a while – because we know very well sometimes that happens 🙂

Team Foodspotting signing out and, as always, wishing you happy spottings!

Everyone knows we eat pretty well and are fortunate for the fact that we can, but that doesn’t mean we forget there’s hunger in the world. To that end, we’re excited to team up with World Food Programme in their social media initiative, WeFeedback, the world’s largest community for sharing food and changing lives in the fight against hunger.

We had such a great experience with the Holiday Spotathon that we’re excited to get the help of our community in another initiative to give back. According to WeFeedback, the cost of your typical burger can feed 40 kids, so our goal is to feed 10,000 by working together. Starting today, uploading a sighting might mean that you’ll see a little prompt inviting you to join us in reaching our goal. Take a look and if you’re so inclined, donate a few dollars to help us get there.

Visit our WeFeedback donation page directly, in case you were interested in giving but haven’t gone out to eat in a while – because we know very well sometimes that happens 🙂

Team Foodspotting signing out and, as always, wishing you happy spottings!

A focus on healthy living has been front and center in the past few years, with a special focus on First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign to fight childhood obesity. Last week the newswires and blogs were buzzing about Beyoncé joining the First Lady’s fight to end childhood obesity. In a video with middle school kids, Beyoncé is putting a fun spin on healthy eating habits and exercise through dance. But healthy eating isn’t as easy as one may expect for disadvantaged people living in poor neighborhoods.

InterAction has a great new tool on their website that helps to show the many food security programs around the world. The Food Security Map is an interactive tool that organizes all of the food and agriculture programs by country, the organization giving the aid, and a description of each project.

For example, you can click on the country Mauritania and see where the food security programs are concentrated at and a brief description of their work. In Mauritania ,World Vision conducts two out of the three programs, one providing support to farmers and another that helps to develop an entire community.

InterAction hopes the map will begin to create more cooperation between their member charities. They also hope that it will give donors more information on how to give to specific projects.

One striking bit of information found from this map is the glut of programs going on in Haiti. The map displays 104 different food security projects in the tiny island nation. The only other nation with that many is Bangladesh. Many say that it is the overwhelming amount of humanitarian aid received that keeps the nation from ever becoming self-sufficient. This map might give more evidence to that point of view.

The Food Security Map can be found at InterAction by hitting this link. Below is a screen-shot of the map.